Lisa Sandford stands for “equality and freedom.” She loves the men in her life, but in no way thinks women are the weaker sex. She appreciates that she has choices in life and, when the time comes, she plans to be a stay at home mother.

Courtney of Lisa Sandford

By the dictionary definition, the 22-year-old from Melbourne, Australia, is a feminist — she believes in equality for the sexes. And yet, she rejects feminism with a vengeance, brushing it off as a “rude and nasty” movement that is more interested in trashing views that stray from the party line even if, at day’s end, the cause is common.

“If feminism really accepted equality, they would not tell me my views are wrong, they would accept it and let me be,” she said in an email exchange with the National Post this week.

During an online search a few months ago, she found Women Against Feminism, a Tumblr page that collects submitted photos of women holding signs explaining why they don’t “need” feminism. A typical sign: “I don’t need modern “feminism” because I am not a victim and I am not a misandrist.”

She decided to submit a snap, outing herself to the world as an anti-feminist, loud and clear.

Response to Women Against Feminism has reached fever pitch recently, with many feminists calling the women “woefully misinformed” by viewing feminism as man-hating, or even unknowingly expressing feminist values within their objections. Many have deemed it a product of the men’s rights movement, or bait laid out by conservatives to bring impressionable young women aboard.

But there is one thing the group’s presence makes clear: Feminism has become a complicated, messy and personal quest that women define and experience differently — your feminism is not always my feminism, and sometimes nuance gets lost in the mix. This splintering has become all the more complex in 2014, amidst heated debates around abortion, pay gaps, ‘‘rape culture’’ and #YesAllWomen advocacy aiming to shine a light on everyday oppressions such as not feeling safe walking home alone at night. In recent years, “modern” feminism has come to mean a championing of intersectionality, of insisting that the fight for women’s rights is at once a fight against racism and homophobia. It brings many more people under the tent, activists say. While doing so, they concede, it can also alienate. Others claim the feminist fight should square solely on equality. Still more who identify as feminist also see cracks in the social fabric, believing the cause can only achieve its goals if colonialist and capitalist structures are smashed.

Roxane Gay says she was sad to see these women on Tumblr denounce a movement that has given them so much. But the author of Bad Feminist, a new book of essays, appreciates the difficulty in always being a “good” feminist — clearly devoted to the cause, but navigating a multidimensional world in which judgment comes easy.

‘‘I wanted to claim feminism while also acknowledging that I am not a perfect feminist,’’ she wrote in an email. ‘‘I am, like most people, full of contradictions that may not always mesh perfectly with feminist doctrine but I am still 100% committed to the equality of women, from all walks of life.”

“We often see amazing, intelligent women disavowing feminism because they have warped ideas of what it means to be a feminist.”

There are indeed so many disagreements between “feminisms,” said Heather Jarvis, co-founder of SlutWalk, a transnational movement of protest marches that began after a Toronto police officer told a university audience women shouldn’t dress provocatively if they don’t want to get raped.

“Generally I think there’s a pretty solid consensus that feminism is not about shifting the power so that women are on top, it’s about recognizing the inherent disadvantages women face and the levels of violence women face and trying to find a balance.”

Courtesy of Heather Jarvis

The Women Against Feminism display of young women holding up signs denouncing feminism “needs to be challenged,” she said, especially for the way it appears to “erase” the experience of women of colour or other marginalized groups. Claims such as “civil rights exist right now” fails to acknowledge “several levels of oppression,” she said.

“It is disappointing when we see a lot of young women getting messages that feminism is about picking on them or excluding them or putting them in a box they don’t feel like they want to be in and they’re not in and telling them that it’s about putting down people that they love: men.” With this continued misunderstanding of feminism, she said, “a lot of people are being alienated.”

Kathryn Trevenen, an associate professor at the Institute for Feminist and Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa, said there is clearly a communication gap: “I think one thing this women-against-feminism argument does raise is that it’s important all the time to have respectful education and respectful dialogue.”

But too often, she said, anti-feminists — many of whom choose instead to see themselves as humanists, valuing the agency of all human beings — treat feminism as if it’s a “monolithic authoritative voice. It’s not.’’

In the complex and diverse range of feminists are some that call themselves “equity” feminists — and many of them have been moved to drop the “f” word because they feel the more widely accepted version of feminism — “gender feminism,” as they call it, the kind taught in universities and more visibly present online and in organizations that see far more work to still be done when it comes to ‘‘gender oppression’’ — doesn’t speak to them, and may, in fact, speak down to them.

Brian Harkin for National Post

Christina Hoff Sommers, an author and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, keeps calling herself a feminist because she said she believes in equality and in women’s rights. She also believes only one kind of feminism is allowed to be expressed.

“I think the more we debate this gender ideology the better, because so far it’s been a one-party system, it’s got to be opened up and you’ve got to allow in free-thinking women, libertarian women, conservative women,” she said. “They have to have a voice at the table and they have not. You can’t have a women’s movement that leaves out most of your constituents.”

But by Corinne Mason’s reading of it, so-called “equity” feminists are mistaking equality for sameness — that women need to be the same as men. That’s not realistic nor the goal of feminism, said the professor of gender and women’s studies at Brandon University. She sees this Women Against Feminism meme online as “backlash” to modern feminism’s attempts to “deconstruct the gender binary” (she also sees Ms. Hoff Sommers as anti-feminist and thus would “disagree with everything she has to say”).

THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Patrick Doyle
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Rona Ambrose, when she was the Harper government’s Minister for the Status of Women, was roundly critiqued by many feminists for apparently straying from the orthodoxy, and supporting a House of Commons motion to debate sex-selective abortion. Her successor has a specific definition of feminism: It’s about “advocating for equal rights for women and girls and ensuring they have the opportunities to succeed in Canadian society,” Kellie Leitch wrote in an email to the National Post.

“I hope to be a strong voice in helping women and girls achieve this. Does that constitute ‘feminism’? That will clearly depend on who you are talking to, and how they define feminism,” Dr. Leitch wrote. “I think most Canadians think that men and women deserve the same opportunities and the same conditions that can help foster their long term success and well-being, both professionally and personally.”

Carmen Cheung

Sheila Sampath, editor of Shameless, an intersectional feminist magazine for teen girls and trans youth, admits she usually has more arguments with feminists about feminism than she does with men.

“People have very legitimate reasons to reject feminism,” Ms. Sampath said. “It doesn’t surprise me that the narrative they’re responding to is the dominant narrative. That narrative itself is pretty racist, pretty capitalist and focused only on gender. To be honest, I reject that too.”

At the same time, she said, she would never say ‘‘I don’t need feminism’’ because feminism means something different to her: It means anti-capitalism, de-colonization, anti-racism and class equality.

“That’s feminism. But that’s a less sexy sell than ‘I can do what men can do! Girl power!’”